Goode was also a community activist, chair of the state Public Utility Commission, and managing director for the City of Philadelphia.

He was a member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps while attending Morgan State and entered the US Army as a First Lieutenant in the military police.

In 1968, he completed his graduate studies at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned his master's in Public Administration.

Goode went on to win the general election over former Green fund-raiser and Philadelphia Stock Exchange Chairman John Egan, the Republican Party nominee.

[citation needed] Goode's tenure as mayor was marred in 1985 by the MOVE Bombing, in which police attempted to clear a building in West Philadelphia inhabited by MOVE, a radical back-to-nature group, whose members, under the leadership of founder John Africa, had long defied city officials by yelling slogans and statements from a megaphone, ignoring city sanitation codes, assaulting neighbors, and resisting law enforcement officers.

He earned a Doctor of Ministry at Palmer Theological Seminary,[6] and became a minister and professor at Eastern University, as well as a leader of advocacy for faith-based initiatives.